Gaming in 2016 ?

What will gaming bring me in 2016 ? I’m not sure, but here are my guesses :

Games I’m Playing Right Now :

Ingress – At some point I’m going to be completely done with the game and cease to log in. Changes in game mechanics might tweak that. For instance, better key mechanics, such as unlimited key storage or use of keys inside the capsules you’ve purchased; or real defense, that actually stops an attacker flat, or server priority for defense instead of offense.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a fantastic game, but it just looks like for me, Doc Burbank, I’m done.

Marvel Heroes – A name change is coming in a few days and it will magically be Marvel Heroes 2016 ! This amuses me, because you usually associate name changes with big feature changes. I’m aware of nothing new coming besides the changed name and the usual game tweaks.

But Gazillion is impressive. They apparently took a total turd at launch time, and much like Everquest 2, improved it over time until it’s becoming a real gem. Achievements. Danger Room. More heroes. Midtown Madness. Cosmic Levels. More currencies than you can shake a stick at, which after a while, you get used to and enjoy having. I really like this game, although my interest waxed and waned over the last several months.

Best guess is this will get played to some degree all year. It’ll probably cost me money for something – Heroes, Bank Slots, or Costumes. God help me if I start buying costumes, you could blow hundreds of dollars on that stuff. I remain about $40 invested in the game, but I’m tempted to buy more.

World of Warships – This is fun, but I’m very low on ship slots and not that interested in spending more money. And so this killed the game for me. I haven’t logged in for a month or so…. but I’d like to. Unified accounts (like were originally promised) would probably revive my interest and convince me to spend “Wargaming Gold” on new ship slots and continue playing.

And the other reason I don’t play this is because, simply put, I’d rather play tanks.

World of Tanks – More tanks to play and unlock. Marvel shouldered this one aside again and I assume I’ll be putting in matches once again soon, after the Marvel winter event. Best guess is this gets playtime in chunks throughout 2016.

Adventure Capitalist – This barely counts as something played, but oh well. I enjoy accumulating my quattorquindecillion’s worth of money. But given the low level of daily play (1 minute?) I will probably continue logging in for the entire year.

Games On My Radar :

My Steam Library – Just like the rest of nerd gaming-dom, I have a large library of games I’ve lightly or never played on Steam. I was not the slightest bit tempted to buy anything over the Holiday sale. Far too much has been purchased and not played, and yet, odd as it is, it was enjoyable to search out all those bargains and buy them. If I never play them, I got some amusement out of the whole process and learned something new – the joy of buying things for its own sake. (My wife knows all about this phenomenon….)

Star Ruler 2 comes to mind, along with Wasteland 2 and Dino D-Day (Ridiculous idea ! Fun as hell ! Will the game match up at all?) as games I’ve not played for any good reason. Cities : Skylines is the one I want to play the most, and yet, I’ve never logged in and played the game. City builders have been so dissapointing over the years after Simcity 4’s massive goodness – and irritating problems – and yet the premise still seems fun.

Regicidesounds interesting as I continue to wait for a Battle Chess game to pass across my radar, but I was after a sub $10 price point. It’s at $10 during the Steam sale.

Star Wars : SWTOR – this has gone free-to-play, and I admit, I’ve read very little about it. But I am intrigued enough to perhaps try it out in the free-to-play world. If I had to pay for it like at release time it would be a definite no go.

Armored Warfare should get another try. Maybe they can improve the queueing time to the point I’d actually like to play. I don’t know.

Games To Be Released :

Pokemon Go – This sounds like it might be fun. Travel to different spots in Meatspace, and collect various Pokemon. Fight virtual battles. Level up your Pokemon at a Gym, and acquire powers. Trade with other players, not a very exciting concept, since in practice this usually doesn’t work that well and ruins a game. Maybe this will be different. Expected release date is “2016”

Master of Orion – Can Wargaming move forward and publish this one well ? Did they pick the right studio to develop with NGD ? Time will tell. The real question is, was it just the first really good 4X in space so it’s remembered fondly, or is there something about the experience that will stand out during a remake ? I really, really hope it’s the latter, although I’m enough of a fanboy that I bet I’m buying the thing on release day no matter what. No release date is hinted at. Hopefully it’s 2016 sometime but you never know.

Now, I can look back next year and see how well these ideas stacked up with whatever happens during the year.